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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24519070">a radical notion: are you awake?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/but_seriously/pseuds/but_seriously'>but_seriously</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bingo Bangers [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Inception (2010), The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Inception AU, Partners in Crime, kcbingo2020</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:14:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,170</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24519070</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/but_seriously/pseuds/but_seriously</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>INCEPTION AU: Caroline wants out, but Klaus isn't so convinced.</p><p>//</p><p>“You’re in my dreams.”</p><p>"That I am,” Caroline says agreeably as she weaves through the pillars, leaving behind a red silk trail. Her dress, torn at the knees. Klaus had seen it on her, somewhere, she’s sure – something in his eyes softens as he studies the way the red wraps around her shoulders. Maybe he’s trying to remember. To distract him, she adds, “It’s the last safe place on earth.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bingo Bangers [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1780807</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a radical notion: are you awake?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>yet another one from my WIP folder - and now it's posted as part of the KC June '20 Bingo for the prompt PARIS.</p><p>gorgeous beautiful spectacular never-before-seen graphics by the lovely Melissa (goldcaught @ tumblr).</p><p>thank you, as always, to fleshandbonetelephone, galvanizedfriend &amp; goldcaught for listening to me cry about this fic and reading through its painful first drafts. </p><p>the first chapter might be a bit confusing for those of you who haven't watched Inception, only because i'm laying the foundation of the Inception universe. but seriously, what are you doing NOT watching Inception? get to it!</p><p>trigger warnings: guns, descriptions of suicide</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>a radical notion:</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>hey, are you awake?</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <strong>—</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>The day Enzo comes over is the day that he, for some inexplicable reason, decides to burn her apartment down.</p><p>“I’m going to do it!” he calls from outside, his shadow pooling like black ink in the cloak of golden street light. “Don’t think I won’t!”</p><p>There’s a whir of cars, a dull thud of heel against gasoline can, the rattle of bed railings against scuffed wallpaper from next door, the wet slosh of beer against gleaming green glass.</p><p>“Enzo,” she calls from inside, her arms slipping on wet porcelain. From where she is she can just make out the black scruff of his hair that refuses to soften under comb or touch, but more importantly: the tank of gasoline hanging limply from his hand.</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>“You’re drunk.”</p><p>“Yes,” is his decided reply.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>“Redecorating?”</p><p>Of course the first thing Enzo does when he wakes up is move everything around in her fridge and breathe down her shoulder, eyeing the half-done wallpaper and pretending to not see the burnt space above her mantelpiece. “Damask. Interesting. I always pegged you for floral.”</p><p>“If you’re going to stay,” Caroline says into her red wine, “might as well make yourself useful.” Bubbles froth tiny discordant pops around her knees, her back slips into the warm water, and Enzo knows better than to snark. He rolls his eyes, maybe, but he crouches by the lip of her tub and starts rubbing circles into her skin. Touch her hard enough, he’d once said, and she’d end up as calloused and weathered as he.</p><p>“But then again, you haven’t lived long enough,” he says softly into the fine curls of baby hair at the nape of her neck. “You haven’t endured.”</p><p>The window steams from the hot water. Caroline places her empty wine glass on the windowsill and leans into his massage, eyes closing. She imagines smashing the glass and pointing red shards at his throat. “You don’t know that.”</p><p>Her chin dips into the water. It’s a tougher angle for him to keep going, she thinks out of spite. But he also knows better than to stop.</p><p>“There’s—sit up a bit, Gorgeous—there’s a job, next month, in Sicily—”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Caroline—“</p><p>“I said <em>no.</em>”</p><p>“Are you just going to sit here all day in this tub, then? Watch the world pass you by?”</p><p>“Is that judgement I detect in your tone?” Her gaze thins. He can’t see, and maybe that makes her clear her throat and roll her neck, regain composure. She’s not the one who spent fifty years in a locked cellar, looping time around memories of a girl.</p><p>“I’m just saying…” Enzo sighs. With a kiss to her temple he says, “You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.”</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>Because this, her little apartment in the crook of Place de Furstenburg, isn’t <em>dreaming</em> <em>big</em> enough? She’d certainly worked hard at it. As if dreams could be found in a pied-à-terre she had scrubbed its floors and polished its wooden beams, dragged a tub to the tall absurdly-French windows so she could count the smoky grey rooftops of Paris, watched their raised hats of weathered shingles and rain-beaten drainpipes—watch the world pass her by, in all essence.</p><p>Because damn if she didn’t deserve this.</p><p>It was as if dreams could be found in the prop of her ankles on her windowsill, the sleepy tilt of her head as she devoured the world, all from the view of her window. She didn’t need to go to sleep anymore, not if she didn’t want to.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>Caroline’s not sure why, but she thinks she sees Klaus at the Pavillon Gabriel. He would have been a welcome ruin; different than the kind she’s feeling now.</p><p><em>Centre</em> <em>yourself</em>, Klaus would have reminded her if he were really there, and because she doesn’t hear his voice, she’s certain it’s not real. She’s certain, because Klaus always loves to make himself known, in some way or another. It’s not a dream, but it’s not real either.</p><p>Besides, she reminds herself, why would he be at her university celebration, anyway? <em>She </em>hadn’t even wanted to go, but somehow felt compelled to in the end; she’d had a dress, she’d had nothing to do, and her course mates were all going. It was going to be a ball, <em>a grand time!</em> they’d all sworn.</p><p>And hadn’t that all been what she was after?</p><p>A ball, a grand time, a normal university life, plans, a future?</p><p>Why would he be here?</p><p><em>You know </em>why, a treacherous voice whispers in the back of her head.</p><p>Despite the champagne sparking deliciously on her tongue, Caroline hasn’t yet spiralled into perfumed oblivion like she very much wants to the way everyone else is well into their third flute. She can’t seem to be able to have a good time. It’s a feeling of agitation she can’t place—a prickling in the space where short tendrils of her hair curl against the space of her neck.</p><p><em>Klaus</em>, she wonders again, but then shakes the thought from her head. It’s not the right kind of feeling.</p><p>She’s disconcerted to know that her mind just conjures him out of nowhere, like magic. Like there are still needles injecting Somnacin into her arm, lulling her into the unreal. What a hold he has on her, despite her having left the game months ago.</p><p>She takes a deep breath and tries to centre herself.</p><p>Her date has gone somewhere, probably making the rounds, polite chatter and stilted compliments and the low rumble of laughter, barely showing any teeth.</p><p>It was only last year, in many a different ballroom in many a different city— she had enjoyed these sorts of events, the same burr of cellos and the simpering of violins present in every hall, though different the occasion might be. Last year, she wouldn’t be there for pleasure. Her dress wouldn’t even have been her own. Gifted, as always – and Klaus’s voice would always be in her ear, tinny through the comms device. <em>That</em><em>’s it, love </em><em>– reel them in slowly now.</em></p><p>More people shoulder into her, drunk on the sway of the music and the end of a very difficult semester, and she accepts their tittering apologies with a modest bow of her head, but she can almost hear a voice whispering in her ear, sly.</p><p><em>Sweetheart, why bother</em> with formalities of this small, <em>insignificant</em> room when the whole <em>world</em> could be hers for the <em>taking</em>?</p><p>Her gloved fingers tighten around the stalk of her glass, cool even through the silk. She imagines it to be the handle of her well-caressed gun.</p><p><em>You could do it,</em> and she knows she could. She’s counted heads as she’d swept in, and she’s angry – <em>furious</em>, in fact, that she still has to. Needs to. How all these years have never really shed off of her. <em>Just lean in, flutter your eyelashes, a drop of Somnacin in their glass</em><em>—</em></p><p>She sets down her glass on a passing waiter’s tray.</p><p>Takes out her phone and taps a number without having to think too hard about it.</p><p>Lets it ring twice before hanging up.</p><p>Not two minutes go by before a foreign number calls her back. She picks up and says, immediately, “I need to see him.”</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>She finds herself on the Pont de Bir-Hakeim, waiting for him. It doesn’t surprise her that this is where she winds up counting down the seconds until she sees him, or he sees her – she’d walked this bridge every single day to get to her university. Klaus knew – knows.</p><p>The view of the Eiffel tower isn’t as intriguing where she’s standing. Not when there are so many other things to wander at: the never-ending click of rubber soles against worn concrete, the swoon and sway of the passers-by, the inaudible vigour of the beautiful, ugly, sticky Seine.</p><p>“Caroline?”</p><p>She turns her head, but doesn’t look at him – not immediately.</p><p>It’s always difficult to look at him after a long time. Her heart, for all her training, still produces such violent reactions. She sometimes wished she could look at him like it was her first time all over again – no romantic notions, there. It’s easier to look upon a stranger, devoid of expectations, devoid of the mortifying ordeal of being so fucking known.</p><p>“Caroline,” he says again after ascertaining that yes, it is indeed her, and no – she’s not disappeared yet. He must deduce that she’d wanted to be found by him, and for such a dark, hardened man there is so much light in his smile. She doesn’t have to look at him to know that.</p><p>“Hello, Klaus,” she says quietly, eyes on the river.</p><p>He stops beside her. His elbows rest on the railing, inches away from hers. A breeze picks up, cool and invigorating, and it carries his scent to her.</p><p>“What are you doing here, in…” That beatific smile on Klaus’ face freezes, just a second, as he catches himself. “In Paris. Where you live. Where I…”</p><p>Klaus starts to look around before stopping himself. She purses her lips and watches him from the corner of her eye.</p><p>He’ll catch on, he will.</p><p>He always does.</p><p>It only takes a second for the look in Klaus’ eyes to change, and he smiles at her once again, but it is a different smile now. Is he disappointed? “You’re in my dreams.”</p><p>He doesn’t reach for his totem to make sure. Why would he? He is who he is.</p><p>When he is certain, he is certain.</p><p>And with his realisation, everyone else disappears mid-step and it is only the two of them.</p><p>“That I am,” Caroline says agreeably as she weaves through the pillars, leaving behind a red silk trail. Her dress, torn at the knees. Klaus had seen it on her, somewhere, she’s sure – something in his eyes softens as he studies the way the red wraps around her shoulders. Maybe he’s trying to remember. To distract him, she adds, “It’s the last safe place on earth.”</p><p>“You couldn’t mean that,” Klaus says, and that smug face of his splits into a mollified grin as he guides her through Paris as he sees it. Ever so easily flattered.</p><p>Her hand feels warm in his—his is a different kind of calloused than Enzo. Klaus still knew (still remembered) how to touch her.</p><p>“But I do,” is her almost-forgotten reply. He rarely stands so close. It’s distracting <em>her </em>now; she can almost laugh at the irony of their reversed roles. “I think I might move. Kol knows where I live now.”</p><p>“Everybody knows where you live,” Klaus grumbles, but it’s good natured. They walk on for a while, until the bridge ends. They step into a cathedral. The light that shifts through the high stained windows makes it look like he’s made of glass too. Caroline doesn’t doubt it: here, anything’s possible.</p><p>Klaus still draws. It’s in the tell-tale scrawl of the edges of the cathedral. They always seem half done, nowhere near the perfection of Elijah’s perfectly slanted skillions, but they had a heartbeat and the thrum of blood. Klaus feels, he feels so much at times, and his buildings suffered – or maybe even thrived – from it.</p><p>And she remembers: a night long ago, somewhere hot and tropical, the rub of his thumb on her ankle, the lingering of her fingers on his forearm, a prick of a needle, a flutter of eyelashes, the cacophony of a palace crashing down around their ears. She’d thought she’d found his heart then, but it was only a bloody rib.</p><p>“The job in Sicily,” Caroline begins slowly – falters – and she can see Klaus pause. He’s studying her the way Elijah frowns down at blueprints –<em> it couldn</em><em>’t be, no</em>—</p><p>“I’m not coming back,” she adds quickly.</p><p>“Then you shouldn’t be asking,” Klaus says, just as stubbornly. All charming pretence dropped. Her hand in his doesn’t feel as welcome anymore – this time, he’s holding onto her as if she might disappear into thin air.</p><p>The space around them feels too tight, too constricted. She could conjure a door and walk right out of there: she imagines cliffs and salty air and damp sand between her toes, but then she imagines blood on her hands and brine in the cracks of her teeth.</p><p>“Come on.” He tugs her outside. Always knowing. She remembers faintly that there was no use for her dreaming up doors, anyway. It’s not her dream. “How did you get here?”</p><p>“Rebekah.”</p><p>If Klaus is surprised, he doesn’t show it. “Had a nice girly day with her, then?”</p><p>In the welcome distraction of the street they’ve just stepped into she doesn’t answer.</p><p>The streets are made of mirrors. Under Klaus’s boots she thinks they might crack, but he makes no sound when he walks. He’s a tightrope artist, weathered and agile and ready to snap into shape at a moment’s notice. Her own reflection gazes up at her but she seems dazed, distant. She pulls out her gun.</p><p>“Wait.”</p><p>She stills.</p><p>Klaus steps closer to her, out of the shadows and into the light: he meets her in her golden haze, looking for all the world like he’s never seen her before. “Why did you come, Caroline?”</p><p>And this, this is the Klaus she recognizes underneath the Klaus that looks like he’s already started working where to place her in his great glass city. The Klaus that never wants you to leave before he’s made whatever grand proclamation he’s had up his sleeve. So rehearsed, so talented. She wonders why she’s the forger and he’s the architect, and not the other way around.</p><p>She slips into her given role easily, she is a <em>forger</em> after all, he’s made her and she can’t unmake herself now. She gives him a winsome beam. “Because I’ve missed you, of course.”</p><p>Klaus’ face clouds over. In the distance, she can hear the sound of glass shattering as a building collapses.</p><p>And she doesn’t know how to be honest with this Klaus. How does she even begin to tell him that she’s felt a strange presence yesterday, of being followed? How does she tell him none of that warranted a meet, since they are all used to being followed by now? How does she tell him that maybe, maybe she’d just wanted to see him in a state where it would be equal footing on both sides?</p><p>She doesn’t even bother hiding her face. Klaus can always read her, even when she’s the one in his head. Klaus studies her expression, gazes into her eyes. It’s a gentle probing. She feels the floor give out from under her feet, but she’s still standing.</p><p>“Will I see you when I wake up?” Klaus asks when the silence stretches too long, when Caroline has pressed the muzzle of her gun to her temple in lieu of an answer.</p><p>“Not likely,” she responds, honestly this time, and pulls the trigger.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>With a shudder and a gasp, Caroline wakes.</p><p>She rolls off the bed and pulls the needle from her arm and barely flinches at the pain; expertly winding up her IV line in record time and tucking it back into its slot in the PASIV. Turning a dial, She has to work quickly, she doesn’t have much time. Klaus could wake any second.</p><p>She checks the LED display of the atomized timer and relaxes slightly when she sees that he’s still going to be under for a bit, giving her enough time to make her escape, even though a part of her wishes she could stay.</p><p>The stillness of the room is interrupted by the soft rustle of his sheer curtains as she pulls it back, ready to climb out through his window, skitter across the roof, and tumble out into the night.</p><p>But then she looks back for one last look at him.</p><p>Klaus is asleep. His face stern, his brow a hard line as it usually is. Against her better judgment – <em>always </em>against her better judgment, with Klaus! – she walks back to his bed and gingerly perches by his side, careful not to let the mattress dip too much, lest she wake him up.</p><p>They were in his grand little house in Luxemborg. Oxymoronic in its timbers and bricks, a mixture of hard utility and soft elegance; exciting contradictions just like the builder. Somehow she just knows Klaus had built this place himself.</p><p>Was it to be closer to her, she wondered?</p><p>As soon as she’d gotten the text from Rebekah she’d hopped a train, both pleased and perplexed that he was only two hours away. And now here she was, invading his dreams, something she’d made him promise not to do to her.</p><p>She sighs, and strokes her knuckles against his eyebrow. In his sleep, Klaus shifts and murmurs – and then his face softens. Soothed by her.</p><p>“Sleep well, <em>meine Liebe</em>,” she whispers before leaving.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>It is easy to forget who she is as she watches the world whizz by through the window. She can barely see anything in the dark: her reflection gazes back contemplatively at her. There is a glass of wine in her hand; she’s taken liberties with her ticket and hadn’t purchased first-class like she was very sorely tempted to. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t be comfortable.</p><p>“You’re looking mighty twitchy,” says a voice in her ear, and Caroline is trained enough not to look startled even as her heart jumps.</p><p>She surveys him over the lip of her glass and takes a sip, silently chastising herself. She hadn’t even heard her compartment door slide open. “Stefan,” she greets.</p><p>He bobs his eyebrows at her, eyes cool as steel.</p><p>“I’m sure this is the part where you try to convince me this is a great coincidence?” she asks evenly. “We’re a little too old to believe in chance, don’t you think?”</p><p>It used to be an inside joke between them. Stuck in their minutes, hours, days, months of collective dreaming, where time moved differently than the real world – who truly knows how long they’ve actually lived?</p><p>“Would you have preferred me showing up somewhere a little more comfortable for you?” he asks, making himself at home in the seat across from her.</p><p>She scowls. Enzo really doesn’t know how to shut up, does he?</p><p>“For someone refusing to come back,” Stefan says, “you’re sure behaving suspiciously.”</p><p>“Suspiciously?” she retorts. “I’m not the one following old team mates around, Stef.”</p><p>“Don’t flatter yourself,” he says shortly. “I was in Brussels yesterday.”</p><p>“How do you know I was talking about yesterday?”</p><p>Stefan just rolls his eyes. “Thought you were hired for your smarts.”</p><p>“I was hired for my looks, remember?”</p><p>“That’s a nice euphemism for seduction.”</p><p>“Why don’t you leave the big words to me and go back to polishing your bazookas, huh Stef?”</p><p>“Nobody calls me that anymore,” Stefan murmurs absently as he fiddles with the sleeve of his leather jacket. “I guess Enzo’s already tried to get you to come back?”</p><p>This time it is her rolling her eyes. “He tried to burn my apartment down.”</p><p>Stefan grimaces. “Told him not to do that.”</p><p>“You know how he gets when he’s drunk.”</p><p>“So you’re really not coming back?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Then I want answers.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Caroline.”</p><p>“Stefan.”</p><p>“Where the fuck is Elena?”</p><p>“She’s dead—”</p><p>“Do <em>not </em>give me that bullshit.” There’s a look in his eyes that’s just daring her to deny it. She respects him too much to lie, true. But <em>Elena</em>… “Where is she?”</p><p>“I can’t tell you that.”</p><p>All of a sudden Stefan’s demeanour changes. She could have sworn he’d been halfway to warm earlier. His eyes narrow into slits. “Can’t or won’t?”</p><p>“Pick one,” she shrugs. “Either way, you know how stubborn I can get.”</p><p>“Now that’s a damn problem.”</p><p>She almost misses his hand dipping into his sleeve, but before he can pull out the world’s smallest handgun, she’s already smashed her wine glass against her window and pointing her makeshift glass-shard dagger at his throat. “Do <em>not </em>try me, Stefan.”</p><p>Stefan gulps. His Adam’s apple scratches against glass, and a tiny swell of blood mixes in with what’s left of her wine.</p><p>“How dare you,” she says quietly, her voice shaking with rage. “You knew what Elena wanted.”</p><p>“Elena was maddened by grief,” he retorts. “She didn’t <em>know </em>what she wanted.”</p><p>“All the same,” Caroline hisses. “Shame on you.”</p><p>She was quick, but Stefan’s quicker. With a knock of her wrist the broken stem of glass is suddenly in his hands, and it’s pointed back at her. Now he has the gun, the glass, but she’s got his girl.</p><p>“What’s it going to be, <em>Care</em>?”</p><p>“Loyalty,” she says, and looks into his eyes, “<em>Stef</em>.”</p><p>Stefan grits his teeth.</p><p>Without warning he presses the muzzle of his gun to his temple, and she understands everything way too late—before she knows it there is a bang, and Stefan lies crumpled at her feet, dead. She doesn’t scream – not yet not yet <em>not</em> <em>yet </em><em>– </em>with Stefan’s blood pooling at her feet her hand seizes the scarf wound around her neck and almost strangles herself in her attempt to pull it off; she’s trembling almost too much to undo the buttons at her collar but somehow manages, and with her heart in her throat she yanks at the chain hidden underneath layers of cotton and wool to find her totem. When Klaus had asked her to choose a totem to use to discern dreams from reality she’d thought minutely of her life, she’d thought of her work, she’d thought of how insignificant her life suddenly seemed in the grand scheme of things. Not like the feeling of immortality these dreams offered.</p><p>She unfurls her fingers and, in her palm, lay her totem: a miniscule, golden hourglass. Proof of her mortality. She knew its exact weight, she knew her hourglass would tell her the passage of time at six grains per second, she knew she’d forgone quartz sand when she was assembling her totem because it was too angular and wouldn’t flow smoothly.</p><p>These are the things she knows, and she tries to find comfort in the fact that no one else, not even Klaus, could tell her otherwise.</p><p>She rarely prays, but in that moment she swore she would’ve gone down onto her knees and she flips the hourglass —</p><p>She cries.</p><p>The sand doesn’t fall.</p><p>She’s dreaming.</p><p>She drops to her knees uncaring of the red soaking her jeans, scrambling for the little handgun of a Swiss maker that Stefan is so fond of, pointing it to her own temple; cursing when she realises there had only been one bullet.</p><p>Stefan – oh, that son of a bitch was <em>good</em>.</p><p>There was only one more way to go, and she curses again, hearing the stampede of feet outside her compartment. She takes a deep breath, lets it out, and pulls herself to her feet, not looking at Stefan.</p><p>Even logically knowing she’s dreaming isn’t enough to convince her that Stefan isn’t actually dead.</p><p>Hating what’s going to happen next, she slides the door open and steps out into the hall, taking in the sight of the angry, screaming mob, before letting them take over her.</p><p>She awakens, gasping, clutching at her neck – she’d been strangled this time, and that was probably one of the least elegant ways to die and wake up again. There’s a fresh bump in her arm where Stefan had probably just seconds ago pulled out a needle, and she hates that swell of betrayal that lumps up in her throat.</p><p>She hates even more that this is probably how Klaus had felt upon waking up, too.</p><p>Call it fate, call it karma, call it whatever.</p><p>She slams the heels of her palms to her eyes until she sees stars, and wills herself not to go mad.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>Klaus had two forgers, a marksman, a chemist, and an extractor. They all shuffled around, sure of their roles, until he orders them to shuffle again. They usually do, because he paid them such extravagant amounts Caroline had to convince herself to settle for a smaller apartment lest anyone became suspicious of how a grad student could afford the rent.</p><p>It was easy enough to describe Klaus in theory: professional extractor, spy, thief, manipulator, murderer. And then comes everything else that aren’t as easy: He never told anyone how he got his hands on military-grade technology, never divulged who taught him to infiltrate people’s dreams and retrieve their secrets.</p><p>Caroline meets him one day after her class is finished. He’s waiting for her, leaning casually against the door. “Caroline Forbes?”</p><p>“Who’s asking?” she asks, because he doesn’t look like he’s from any of her courses.</p><p>“I am,” he deadpans, and doesn’t roll his eyes because he’s not a freshman like her. She doesn’t even think he’s a student, by the look of his clothes and his age. “Bit cheeky of an answer, don’t you think?”</p><p>She’s suspicious, but she thinks maybe he’d liked that about her. He considers her dress, how she clutches her binder, and her eyes.</p><p>(<em>It</em><em>’s all in the eyes</em>, he tells her, but much, much later. <em>I see everything. </em></p><p><em>Too much</em>, she thinks.)</p><p>“How would you like to make a lot of money?” he asks.</p><p>“I don’t even know your name,” she counters.</p><p>“I’m not that important,” he lies.</p><p>“Are you offering me a job?”</p><p>“Wasn’t that apparent in my question?”</p><p>“What kind of job?”</p><p>“The job of your dreams,” he says like it’s a joke she definitely doesn’t get, and she thinks about how fucking <em>clich</em><em>é </em>that sounds, until she finds out that he’d been quite literal. He tilts his head at her, and she tries not to swallow. She’s only twenty-two—she’s been places, but not everywhere. He seems like the kind of person who’s been everywhere.</p><p>“Do you draw?” he asks, nodding to the class she’d just exited.</p><p>“Not that well,” she lies.</p><p>“What do you major in?”</p><p>“Not drawing. Is this an interview?”</p><p>“Depends. Do you want the job?”</p><p>“Will I ever get a straight answer out of you?”</p><p>“You’re tenacious.”</p><p>“Don’t flirt.”</p><p>He grins, then. “You’d know if I was, sweetheart.”</p><p>“I prefer Caroline,” she snips back.</p><p>“Caroline, then.” The way he says her name is measured. He’s got ink all over his fingers, she notes, and his hair only appears neat because his curls are short, but if it were any longer she would’ve called it unkempt. “Are you studying me?”</p><p>“Yes,” she says.</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Because you’re studying me.”</p><p>“I thought I was being quite subtle.”</p><p>“Not subtle enough,” she says. “Have I got the job?”</p><p>“Yes,” he says. “I’m Klaus. Nice dress.”</p><p>She looks down. Her dress is blue with inlaid diamantes, because they’re in a ballroom, and they’re dancing. She doesn’t shrug, she knows better to. “Thanks. I got it…”</p><p>She pauses. Where had she gotten it?</p><p>Klaus’ smile only widens as he dips her, and she clutches quiet clumsily at his shoulders, wracking her brain. He smells nice and it’s distracting. His face is too close to hers. A formal, stiff voice had announced the dance of the evening – a traditional waltz, but the way Klaus is holding her is anything but traditional.</p><p>“Never mind where you got it, love,” Klaus says low in her ear as he tugs her upwards once again. “It’s not so much the dress as it is the wearer, you know. You’d look ravishing even in an old sack.”</p><p>Fighting down her blush, Caroline fakes a grin and asks, “Is <em>this</em> you flirting?”</p><p>“Just stating a fact,” Klaus says with a quirk of his lips. The music changes, but he still continues to lead. “Again, you <em>would</em> know if I was flirting.”</p><p>“Oh, I remember! I got it,” she tries again, “at – at a vintage shop, I think.”</p><p>“Quick change,” he notes.</p><p>Oh, she thinks, he’s right – but he twirls her now, and the thought flies from her head as she accepts the sandwich he passes her.</p><p>“Thanks,” she says, biting into it. The latte and biscotti she’d had to tide her over really wasn’t that filling. “I’m starving.”</p><p>“I know,” Klaus says, and he smiles like a shark. He sets down the paper he’d been reading and sits back in his chair. There’s still foam on his coffee. “You were telling me about your dress?”</p><p>Caroline blinks. She feels the ghost of an arm lingering on her back, the breathlessness of a turn, but she’s just chewing a sandwich. She looks down. She’s in jeans, a sweater – her mom’s, except she’d folded it up and placed it over her mom’s grave a year ago—</p><p>“What the fuck.” She puts down her sandwich. The table starts to shake, her tea is rattling in its cup and saucer. “Where—”</p><p>“Easy, love—”</p><p>Everyone is staring at them now, and she feels a swooping in her stomach not from her hunger but from a strange fear. Everything feels unreal. “What’s going on?”</p><p>“Do you remember how you got here?”</p><p>With alarm she realises she doesn’t. She looks at him, eyes wide. “We – we were dancing, I don’t—”</p><p>“And before that?” Klaus presses, leaning forwards. He’s unaffected by the sudden earthquake they’re in, eyes bearing into hers. “Try to remember, Caroline. Where were we before?”</p><p>“We—”</p><p>The table shatters into a million fragments in front of them, so do the wide glass windows of the café (Café? They’re in a café?). “What’s going <em>on?</em><em>”</em></p><p>Klaus leans back in his chair, unperturbed by the eeriness around him. Everyone is still staring. “Let it wash over you.”</p><p>Before she can respond, the passers-by start running towards her, and Caroline nearly topples over in her own chair in her attempt to stop from screaming—</p><p>She screams, gasping for air, and Klaus is holding her down as she thrashes. “What the <em>fuck!</em><em>” </em></p><p>She almost falls out of the rickety lawn chair she’s lying in if not for Klaus’ grip on her, vice-like. She’s in a warehouse. There are work tables scattered around her in a loose circle, an arrangement of chairs of different varieties in the middle.</p><p>There is a thin tube needled into her arm, hooked to something she now remembers to be called a Portable Automated Somnacin IntraVenous Device—</p><p>“PASIV, for short,” Klaus smirks. “It allows us to share dreams, all the while providing <em>meticulous </em>control over the chemicals needed to keep us under. Magnificent, isn’t she?”</p><p>—and she yanks it out before Klaus can tell her to be careful – she winces. “That was – we were in a dream?”</p><p>“Yes.” Klaus studies her with his blue, blue eyes. “What you just saw in there was just a façade of our realities I created in my mind. The café, the ballroom, and your university hallway. Not real.”</p><p>“It seemed so real,” she whispers, rubbing at the tiny bump on the inside of her elbow. She closes her eyes and tries to steady her breathing. “Everything.”</p><p>“The mark of a good architect,” Klaus smirks. “Shall we go again?”</p><p>“I—” Caroline gulps, watching the way Klaus’ deft fingers are working the dials on the little machine by her lawn chair. He measures out different liquids and pumps it into the machine, and readies the needle once more. He looks at her, expecting her to say no, probably.</p><p>“Let’s go.”</p><p>He nods once, and reaches fo—</p><p>“… boring you?”</p><p>Caroline blinks out of her daydream. “Sorry, what did you say?”</p><p>“I <em>said,</em>” the man sighs impatiently, gulping down the rest of his drink. “Am I boring you? You’re not even paying attention.” Caroline slowly shakes her head. “I don’t … remember how I got here.”</p><p>The man grins, shark-like, and suddenly it’s Klaus in his place in the barstool. “Nicely done, sweetheart. What gave it away?”</p><p>“There’s a giant duck floating outside the window,” she says faintly.</p><p>“A sign that the subject, you, suspects that this is a dream. And everyone else, made up of your subconscious—” He gestures discretely about the room, where all the chatter and scrape of cutlery have gone silent: everyone is turning in their seats, looking here and there; some are looking directly at them, “—is now looking for the dreamer.”</p><p>“You.”</p><p>“Me.” He seems satisfied that she’s caught on so quickly.</p><p>“So what do we do?”</p><p>“Act naturally, and try to convince your subconscious this is a dream.”</p><p>“And if my subconscious isn’t convinced?”</p><p>Klaus takes a sip of his bourbon. “They’ll kill me,” he says, simple as that.</p><p>“Oh.” Caroline bites her lower lip and wills her palms not to grow clammy. “Now what?”</p><p>“For now, sweetheart… Let’s see what you can do.”</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>What Klaus had wanted to find out was if she could dream. If she could build. And she could, though not as well as him. Never as well as him.</p><p>Not Klaus, who’d had years of training under his belt, who could conjure up entire cities in the blink of an eye. Who steadied her with just a flick of his gaze, strong and steely and so, so blue.</p><p>Working with him taught her many things: it taught her to be a thief, a liar, a master forger. It taught her to be resilient, to think quickly on her feet. It taught her to slip out the door as quietly as a fox, and to slip into dreams as easily as she extracts information from their mark.</p><p>Even though everyone was expected to play different roles, it was clear that everyone had their own corner of expertise in their little team: Elijah, Point Man, rarely if ever joined them in the field. He was a master at execution – he researched the details behind their upcoming missions, and made sure everyone knew their roles. Caroline didn’t see much of him, because Klaus planned and provided direction of each job and personally briefed with Elijah before he met with all of them.</p><p>She learns about the Petrovas – how they were the original extractors and architects, before they plucked Klaus from his role as some kind of civil engineer – a lot of information on Klaus was apparently <em>redacted, </em>which, <em>eyeroll</em> – and made an architect out of him. He infiltrated minds and stole secrets nobody had access to. He designed the mazes that were used as foundations of their dreams. He made sure everyone knew their place.</p><p>Enzo doesn’t care much for rules, so he tells her how Stefan is being groomed by Elijah to take over. Stefan’s good at improvising and adjusting plans, so nothing ever really went wrong in their jobs – especially when he had his firearms in hand.</p><p>Bonnie, as the chemist, created the drugs they used to sedate sleepers. Somnacin, as it is usually called. Caroline had shared a dream with her before, and had been struck by how <em>realistic </em>everything had seemed. It had left her shaken for days.</p><p>And then there was her. Caroline the forger. Klaus tells her she’s vital to the success of the mission; her ability to impersonate anyone, learning their body language, honing their voice, forging their identity—she could convince any mark with her illusions.</p><p>She knew Klaus had grown to depend on her, even more than he depended on Enzo. Sure, Enzo, while preferring to extract could be a forger too at times, and he was pretty good at impersonating women when the time came down to it. But Caroline, Klaus swears, Caroline was a <em>thespian.</em></p><p>“Best to let the thespian work,” Klaus would always say, laughter in his eyes and just a hint of it in the tilt of his smile whenever it comes time for them to start a new job. Enzo laughs outright. Stefan just sighs and continues assembling his firearm for the day. Bonnie barely pay attention: she’s in a corner speaking quietly with Elena, intent on learning everything she can on sedatives and compounds that create sharp, precise dreams from the Petrova legacy before she retires.</p><p>They’re in Moscow for this particular job, a dream within a dream. Their client this time is Fischer-Morrow, some big shot energy conglomerate hellbent on ruling the world. Their mark is the only obstacle standing in the way.</p><p>Caroline is very tempted to tear her dress off at the knees. The first layer of the dream had been easy enough: her on Klaus’ arm in an art gallery showing, Enzo tending the bar whilst scouting their mark, and Stefan skulking the halls outside setting up minute bombs. All she’d had to do was hang onto Klaus’ arm as they spoke to Robert Fischer. She’d been impersonating an old lover of his – she’d tailed her for days, and now knew the exact angle in which Ariadne would tilt her head whenever she laughs.</p><p>The second layer of the dream would require a lot more running. Whilst everyone else would be getting a change of clothes, she won’t be as lucky.</p><p>Klaus hides his smile as she presses the needle into her arm. Their mark is already hooked to the machine, sleeping soundly.</p><p>Caroline nods at Klaus; her non-verbal assent that she is ready.</p><p>“Sleep well, моя любовь,” Klaus murmurs.</p><p>She was just about to let herself go, but at his voice she struggles against sleep’s hold. “What does that mean?”</p><p>Klaus just smiles. Sleep overtakes her.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>Bonnie mixes her compounds. She knows why Caroline needs them, and doesn’t hide the disdain from her face. Caroline takes them without a thanks; Bonnie wouldn’t have wanted it. They’re in her apartment, because Klaus is right. Everyone knows where she lives.</p><p>“Is everyone just a train ride away?” she tries for jokes instead. Bonnie, to her relief, does roll her eyes, but is still all business as she points to the little glass bottle, “Hopefully this brand of Somnacin will result in a sharper dream than last time.”</p><p>“Hopefully?”</p><p>“Hey, everything I know I learned from Elena,” Bonnie shrugs defensively. “And since Elena’s gone…”</p><p>Caroline walks to the PASIV with the bottle of Somnacin; uses a syringe to inject a very specific amount into the machine. She checks, and then double checks. After she sets the timer on the machine, she checks the levels of the chemical again.</p><p>This doesn’t go unnoticed.</p><p>“Why are you extra neurotic these days?” Bonnie asks. <em>Everyone can see it</em>, she doesn’t have to add. “And what’s this I hear about you coming back? Is it true?”</p><p>Caroline tries for mysticism. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”</p><p>As ever, Bonnie isn’t impressed. “Enzo called. He told me a few days ago to keep close tabs on you.”</p><p>That fucking – “<em>Traitor</em>,” she finishes her thought out loud. “What does he know?”</p><p>“Many things you don’t, apparently.” Bonnie thins her lips. “I don’t think I should leave yet. I want to come with you. What’s your agenda tonight?”</p><p>“I haven’t said yes,” Caroline snaps, her fingers closing tightly around the Bonnie’s bottled chemical.</p><p>“I don’t want you diving into old memories.”</p><p>“Who says I will?”</p><p>“<em>I</em> do. You seem unhinged.”</p><p>“We’re all a little unhinged, working for Klaus.” And she flinches, because there it is again, his name, loose on her tongue. Bonnie smirks, just like Enzo, and doesn’t try to hide it. “Look, Bonnie, I appreciate what you’re doing for me, but I’m <em>fine</em>—”</p><p>“You’re not. You keep looking over your shoulder. We’re never fine. Straight up, I know Elena isn’t dead, Care—”</p><p>Caroline hastens to shush her. “Bonnie! Anybody could be listening.”</p><p>“In your apartment? Probably,” Bonnie snorts. “But don’t worry, I’ve had this place de-bugged last week. Do you think anyone’s fine, with this shit we’re in? Do you think Stefan’s fine?”</p><p>“You were in here last <em>week</em>—?”</p><p>“Answer me, Caroline. Do you think Stefan is fine?”</p><p>“Stefan’s still in the game.”</p><p>“That’s because he’s a hopeless romantic behind his big-ass bazookas. Klaus chooses his team well.”</p><p>Caroline sighs. That’s true. Stefan is ever the marksman, resolute in his one-track mind. He’ll do anything to get Elena back, even if it means putting a gun, a real one, to Caroline’s head. “Elena didn’t want me telling anyone where she is.”</p><p>She tries to hide that darkness in her that seeps out whenever she thinks of <em>that </em>particular place, but she must not hide it well enough, because Bonnie catches it.</p><p>Bonnie takes in a breath. “She might as well really be dead, then.”</p><p>“She might as well be,” Caroline doesn’t deny. She chews on her bottom lip and goes to her tub, where a chair is already in place should she need the kick, as if she knew Bonnie would stay. Bonnie’s compounds were always potent, and sometimes she finds herself wondering if she’s still dreaming. Dropping herself into water helps, but never as helpful as when someone helps her fall into it. She turns to Bonnie and allows her a confession: “I’m scared, Bon.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“I feel like I’m being followed. Everyone wants to know where Elena is.”</p><p>“Do you think it’s Alaric?”</p><p>“He’s even more unhinged than I am.”</p><p>“That’s true.”</p><p>“And he’s not good with a gun anymore. His hands shake too much from drinking.”</p><p>“I think Damon makes sure of that.”</p><p>Caroline pauses. “Damon…”</p><p>Bonnie’s eyes harden. “Damon wouldn’t.”</p><p>Her friend would know. She’s smart, and she wields it like a weapon. Her brain, trained for war strategies and mixing compounds almost like witchcraft. Bonnie, who hides her soft heart underneath her icy exterior, who has hurt just like the rest of them. She was stuck in limbo with Damon, once, and they’d been there for a year. She never talks about it.</p><p>But that doesn’t mean Caroline is as forgiving. “I don’t know him like you do.”</p><p>“And I’m telling you, Damon wouldn’t,” Bonnie says firmly. “Yes, a lot of people are looking for Elena. It was convincing at first, but now that enough time has passed nobody’s buying her death anymore. For some reason, she entrusted her entire life to you. Not me, not Stefan, not Damon. And that’s bound to cause problems down the road, but either she knew and didn’t care, or she knew your loyalty would be enough. It’s <em>probably</em> the latter.”</p><p>“Probably?” Caroline smiles despite herself. “Come on, Bonnie.”</p><p>Bonnie smiles too. “I’m coming.”</p><p>There’s really no stopping her, so Caroline tilts her head to her bed in very much a resigned fashion. Bonnie follows smirking.</p><p>She’s a little relieved, if she’s honest. The only time she doesn’t feel caught up in her own head is when Bonnie is around. Bonnie is always level-headed, the only person she knows who mixes compounds and actually comes into the dreams with you; she’s that sure of her own creations.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>Idly, a wandering hand, a pause in her professor’s lecture, a look out the window, and Caroline draws impossible staircases and maps out labyrinths in the corners of her biology notes, winding tunnels down her wrist, drawing doors on her fingers. She feels far away, like she cannot be touched. But she never finishes those drawings, because she’s never been much of an architect, has she? She is ever the theatre major.</p><p>Caroline thinks she’s picked up smoking, but she can’t be sure. Before, she’d been a social smoker. An on-the-job smoker. She likes the sweet menthols, the heavy honey undertones of self-rolled tobacco, the ones Stefan used to smell like.</p><p>Klaus had never liked Stefan smoking, hated it even more when he barged into their safehouse with gunpowder wafting off of him the first thing he’d do was offer Caroline a smoke. Caroline would take it, just to feel part of the team.</p><p>Klaus wouldn’t stand close to her, but he wouldn’t have to.</p><p>She still smells Klaus, sometimes, and when she closes her eyes she sees the crumbling lines of a seaside town on the plane of his back, and when she wakes up she feels the bump of a freshly-pulled out needle on her arm, and she rubs and rubs her skin until she’s lost all feeling in her arm. She almost wonders who’s been in her apartment while she’d been sleeping, but that would be a tad too paranoid, and Alaric’s already championing that slot, constantly fumbling with his totem, constantly smelling like dirty bourbon.</p><p>But then her eyes stray to that old burnt spot above her mantelpiece – Enzo’s proud work – the one she swore last week she’d wallpaper over, and thinks that maybe she’s not being paranoid enough.</p><p>“That’s a terrible habit,” Enzo says, pulling up a chair beside her. She hears him first, smells him second, feels him brush a hand through the ends of her hair, and she wants to tell him to stop fucking with her. That she’s done, that she wants out.</p><p>The cigarette reaches its end and almost burns her. “Fuck,” she says absent-mindedly, and hopes he doesn’t notice the ink in her heartlines.</p><p>Enzo leans forward and says, “When you’re about done moping, I need to talk to you about that.”</p><p>“Smoking?”</p><p>Enzo tuts. He isn’t that transparent, he’s affronted she’s even trying to pretend. He leans forward and gently pulls her by the wrist, towards him, and traces the faint web of her veins. Then he says, “No, Gorgeous. About forgetting.”</p><p>Her heart stops. And it’s been so long, and she can’t be sure, but she’s <em>angry</em>. “Stop fucking with me. I’m <em>done</em>, I want—”</p><p>“<em>Out</em>, yes, I know,” Enzo dismisses with a sniff. He still hasn’t let go of her. “Unfortunately, Elena doesn’t quite have that luxury, does she?”</p><p>She sits quietly in her seat and leans forward to light another cigarette one-handed. She knows she’s going to regret this one, the back of her mouth tastes something awful, but the swift burst of flame from her lighter gives her a reason not to look at Enzo.</p><p>“Elena is dead,” she says around smoke.</p><p>“Then why does Stefan think otherwise?” Enzo persists. “Why didn’t Bonnie mourn?”</p><p>Caroline smirks. “Does anybody still have a heart in our line of work?”</p><p>“Don’t play coy,” Enzo says sharply. “Judging from what’s left of Bonnie’s records, she’s been mixing some very peculiar compounds for you. Dreaming bigger now, are we?”</p><p>If her heart had stopped before, now it remains still, the stillest it’s ever been. She fakes a benign smile. “And what of it?”</p><p>“So you won’t come back where you’re insured a capable team, an impenetrable strategy, a very <em>very</em> stable dream – in and out, how we used to – but you’d rather sit there pretending at vigilantism? Working alone?”</p><p>“I see Klaus has rubbed off on you. Finally managed to convince yourselves you’re the good guys?”</p><p>At the mention of Klaus’ name Enzo’s scowl retreats into the smallest of smirks. Caroline groans. She’d given herself away. She never says his name so freely and Enzo knows that.</p><p>“Oh, Gorgeous,” Enzo sighs. “It was always you fooling yourself. Otherwise you’d never have left.”</p><p>Caroline tries very hard not to put out her cigarette on his forearm. Instead she gives a long-suffering sigh, and tries to ignore that small voice in the back of her head that always, <em>always</em> sounds like Klaus, the one that tells her it’s <em>dangerous</em> – but no, don’t you dare hesitate. “If you stop telling everyone where I live… I’ll let you tell me about our mark.”</p><p>Enzo’s lips part, his teeth show up in that slow lick of a grin he’s giving her. “I’ll do you one better, Gorgeous.”</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>Nothing is different about the warehouse, but everything has changed.</p><p>Stefan doesn’t offer her a cigarette when she follows in after Enzo. Bonnie stands alone in a corner, consulting old notes, a worried set in her brow. She pretends not to notice the smirk Enzo is shooting her way: of course she’d counted heads as soon as she’d walked in. Of course she’d notice the glaring absence of one Klaus Mikaelson.</p><p>“What are our roles this time?” she asks, setting down her bag. There is a cardboard model of the dream layout already there on the table, and she walks towards it to take a closer look. She picks up a model tower and raises it to the light, studying it.</p><p>“Why, fancy yourself a marksman?” Stefan asks. He doesn’t look up from assembling his Glock.</p><p>She’s about to retort when she hears a laugh – she is not in control of her sharp inhale. A warm, calloused hand wraps around her fingers. Her lips part. The model tower is no longer in her hand, but in Klaus’.</p><p>She can’t look at him.</p><p>Klaus steps right up to her, and lifts the model tower between them.</p><p>She’s looking at him.</p><p>Klaus. He looks sharp. Real. Precise lines, burnished curls, worn-down jacket, scuffed boots, expensive cologne. She realises then, how her subconscious never really got the exact blue of his eyes.</p><p>“Now, now, Stefan,” Klaus says, amused as ever. “Best to let the thespian work.”</p><p>Enzo laughs, rubbing his palms together. “And we’re off.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>please review and let me know what you think!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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